I don’t start out to achieve anything, it depends what style of painting it is, whether or not it is a series or what mood I’m in. My subconscious mind tells me, helps me to produce the work, rather than what people want me to produce.

I think education ruins art. It tries to get you to look at work that other artists have produced so you will be influenced by it.

I’ve been told to produce a certain amount of pieces by lecturers, or do it in a certain way, and I say ‘no’. I did a presentation at university where I criticized the lecturers for expecting me produce my work within their educational structures.

I never produce what anyone wants me to produce.

With most of my work, I don’t rate the finished piece at all, it’s the process I rate, the process, altering materials , a metamorphosis.

JIMMY LANNON

When I first started I used a paintbrush, but now I don’t because there’s more restriction to the movements. Throw the brush away and use your hands and body. Throw it. I’m a process painter.

When Pollock paints, it’s about performance, an act of painting, it’s not about the finished piece.

I surround myself with different paints and even engine oil when I start a new piece and I mix and throw paint and see how the paint will direct me or what it will do. I apply the paint, hoping it’s going to do something different and that then intensifies my interest in the piece and focuses the direction I’m going in.

I was a painter/decorator years ago , so through experience I have learnt how paints layer onto each other and how they will chemically react so I want to push these boundaries to their limits.

I wanted to push a new type of paint to its boundaries and see if I can change it, not through manipulation, but the paint to manipulate the course of how the piece is progressing.

I’ve always used UV paint in my paintings to some degree, because the colour is so vibrant, it stands out and it’s a statement.

The actual density of the paint restricts the flow, and the way it blends restricts.

My main thought behind it, was about fluidity. People say you can’t mix certain paints together, but if you keep going, when you put it on the canvas it separates.

Jimmy Lannon

Some of my influences and interests come from The Dutch masters, like Verneer, who developed the processes of layering and sticking the oil paints onto the canvas. I appreciate Harold Rosenberg, The movement came out of anger, built up from anxiety and depression from the war.

Gutai, is a Japanese art movement that was established in 1950’s and it was an Avant-garde movement. Their work was all about the process of the making. They through a lot of trouble , because the work they were producing was about pushing the boundaries and exploring new aspects of art , producing this kind of work and movement just after the war , produced a backlash of negative comments , because it was a critique on the world around them.